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Fourth-gen iPad now? Why? And what Apple’s new lineup looks like…

At the Ars Technica Mac Forum, I made a post explaining why I think that Apple decided to release a 4th generation iPad now, in the fall, instead of the regular spring-time release.

Remember how there were all those rumors in 2011 about a second update to the iPad in the fall? But it never materialized? I’m willing to bet that it almost happened – except that the retina display yield issues caused it not to happen, so they went with the traditional spring launch. So instead of syncing up the iPhone/iPad release dates in 2011, they did it in 2012. This year since there were no yield issues with any parts (the A6X was ready to go), they changed the annual release date from spring to fall.

There were a TON of rumors about a fall 2011 iPad release [1][2][3]. But it didn’t happen. But now the iDevice launches are synced, mostly.